Governance, ease of living, and citizens’ perception: Components for quality-of-life assessment in mid-sized smart cities

Smart cities are technology-driven urban agglomerations. Sustainability, competitiveness, and quality of life are the three cardinal principles for smart cities. The available studies specific to smart cities are related to smart technologies, innovations, smart infrastructure, etc., and limited studies are conducted from citizens’ perspectives. The present study aims to assess the impact of governance, general well-being, also called ease of living of citizens, and citizens’ perception of smart cities on their quality of life in mid-sized smart cities of India. The innovation and novelty of present study is that it attempts to fill the research gap in studies on smart cities by adopting the citizen-centric approach rather than infrastructure and technology-centric approach in developing countries.   Three Indian mid-sized smart cities, Pune, Nagpur, and Indore were identified for the study. For the purpose of this study, a few hypotheses were developed and a structured questionnaire was prepared from the literature review. The data was collected from Pune, Nagpur, and Indore smart cities and it was analyzed by performing factorial analysis and Structural Equation Modelling using appropriate statistical package software. The findings from the statistical analysis validated the hypotheses. The results of the study indicate a strong positive impact of citizens’ perception of smart cities on quality of life (Standardized Estimates = 0.66) while governance (Standardized Estimates = 0.11) and ease of living (SE=0.46) presented low to medium impact relationship with citizens’ quality of life. The findings of this study concludes that citizens’ perception has highest influence on their quality of life. Considering these findings in the context of mid-sized smart cities, this study significantly contributes in existing research on tools and indicators of quality-of-life assessment in urban centers specifically in developing countries. This research article attempts to provide a substantial theoretical and practical contribution to urban studies.